Smart Specialisation Newsletter

In the light of the Commission’s adoption of the Sustainable Blue Economy Strategy as an essential tool to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal whilst ensuring a green recovery from the pandemic, a joint workshop of DG Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) and Joint Research Centre (JRC), in cooperation with DG REGIO, is being organised, dedicated to support the Smart specialisation approach in the Blue Economy field. A workshop will pave the initial step to develop Smart specialisation interregional partnerships in the Blue Economy and will address three main points: 1) Building on the experiences from the 2014-2020 S3 cooperation; 2) Preparing for the future S3 interregional partnerships for Sustainable Blue Economy; 3) The role of Macro-regional and Sea-Basin Strategies, New Horizon Missions and the BlueInvest Platform in the future Interregional Blue Economy S3 cooperation. The workshop will be held online on the 6th of July 2021 from 9:00 to 12:45 CET.

This Smart Story focuses on the promotion of technology transfer in Romania with the support of Smart Specialisation activities. The key RIS3 success factors include careful governance and the establishment of an efficient bottom-up partnership approach, involving all relevant stakeholders at regional level, in an extended entrepreneurial discovery mechanism.

Two case study briefs from S3P-Industry projects that have been supported by the Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) are now online. Read more about the experiences and lessons learnt from the DE-REM project carried out by the Efficient and Sustainable Manufacturing partnership and from the SMBio-LNG project of the Bioeconomy partnership.

This survey aims to confirm the potential of the European Union (EU) concept of (smart) specialisation policy to guide innovation-driven territorial development at the regional level, in line with the principles of sustainable development. Based on the information from the survey, we will provide a robust analysis on the status, opportunities and challenges faced when implementing a regional innovation policy based on specialisation in Latin America. The survey is addressed to policy makers in Latin American countries at national and regional levels.

The event was a result of the joint effort of several United Nations agencies and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in the framework of the working group on Capacity Building of the Inter-Agency Task Team on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It took place on the 19, 20 and 21 of April 2021 aiming at policy makers, professionals, and public sector administrators working in different areas of STI policies in Latin America.

This publication presents the results of a survey, launched in 2020 as part of a research project performed by the Smart Specialisation platform to gain new insights on the Smart Specialisation (S3) policy experience across the European Union (EU). Survey results provide evidence on the state of implementation, challenges and critical aspects as well as some of the results achieved by this policy experiment in view of the new Cohesion Policy 2021-2027.

This report provides some insights on the impact of Smart Specialisation on the governance of research and innovation policy systems across EU regions and countries. The study explores the governance arrangements underpinning Smart Specialisation strategies and the changes introduced by this policy concept. It then investigates to what extent (if any) and how Smart Specialisation has been promoting better coordination and collective action.

This publication explores the impact of the adoption of the Smart Specialisation approach on the governance of research and innovation policy systems. Results show that Smart Specialisation has strengthened the networks of actors involved in the policy process and made the governance of innovation policy more inclusive. Despite the general increase in pressure for coordination, the effectiveness of horizontal and vertical coordination within and across administrative levels is still weak in many territories. More efforts are needed in this area in the future, together with the strengthening of skills and resources to perform policy functions. There is evidence that Smart Specialisation has supported the production of a wide range of tangible and intangible collective goods.

The special issue of the Smart Specialisation Newsletter builds on the presentations held during the 'Smart Specialisation for the Recovery' online workshop on 15 April 2021 that gathered more that 920 participants. Key policy-making protagonists in Smart Specialisation - the Committee of the Regions, the Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, DG REGIO and the Joint Research Centre – agreed that Smart Specialisation has the potential to become a decisive vehicle for economic transformation towards the new green and digital economy all across the EU. The Newsletter aims to showcase the collaborative approach embraced by leading European innovation actors to bring forward the twin transition. It also seeks to disseminate these key messages to the Smart Specialisation community, and to serve as a reference document to enhance the Recovery period. In the context of the UN 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, the Green Deal works in tandem with Europe’s Smart Specialisation approach.

As part of the Higher Education for Smart Specialisation (HESS) project activities, the Greek region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (REMTh) has benefited from the support provided by the JRC to identify the main challenges of the region in terms of the Smart Specialisation Strategy implementation, and explore how higher education can support a thicker and more connected innovation ecosystem engaging in the Smart Specialisation Strategy. The JRC has facilitated spaces for joint reflection on how to build administrative capacity and improve Smart Specialisation governance, learn from experiences and identify actions for higher education to become more entrepreneurial and innovative.